"Jost's Report on the Abetifi School in the First Half of 1897"

In this half year there were 106 pupils - the first time the numbers had passed 100 - and the building put up in 1894 is already too small. 26 of this number are girls, 65 boys in the boarding section. Of the boys whose home is in Abetifi 20 have parents in the mission station, and 16 come from the heathen town. Jost remarks that he can see no difference between the two, and that the schoolboys are really very like those in Europe - perhaps a bit more stubborn and crafty. At the beginning of the year they uncovered – apparently with the help of pupils in the senior class who had erected the night-time movements involved in enjoying the booty – a formally organised band of hen-thieves among some heathen pupils - they were expelled, though Jost was very sorry to do this in view of the fact that they would return to heathen homes. The scholars planted a maize planatation only after constant supervision, but built the fence so badly and looked after it so apathetically that there was no harvest at all - the sheep and goats had damaged it too badly. He learned from this that his African boys have little interest in working, and it is a difficult problem for a teacher to bring his pupils to any understanding of the worth of work. 'We want to make these youths not only Christian and pious, but also hard-working members of their nation. We follow the Evangelical principles through Christianity to work.’

21.07.1897

21.07.1897

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